futures io is the largest futures trading community on the planet, with over 90,000 members. At futures io, our goal has always been and always will be to create a friendly, positive, forward-thinking community where members can openly share and discuss everything the world of trading has to offer. The community is one of the friendliest you will find on any subject, with members going out of their way to help others. Some of the primary differences between futures io and other trading sites revolve around the standards of our community. Those standards include a code of conduct for our members, as well as extremely high standards that govern which partners we do business with, and which products or services we recommend to our members.

At futures io, our focus is on quality education. No hype, gimmicks, or secret sauce. The truth is: trading is hard. To succeed, you need to surround yourself with the right support system, educational content, and trading mentors Ė all of which you can find on futures io, utilizing our social trading environment.

With futures io, you can find honest trading reviews on brokers, trading rooms, indicator packages, trading strategies, and much more. Our trading review process is highly moderated to ensure that only genuine users are allowed, so you donít need to worry about fake reviews.

We are fundamentally different than most other trading sites:

We are here to help. Just let us know what you need.

We work extremely hard to keep things positive in our community.

We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts.

We firmly believe in and encourage sharing. The holy grail is within you, we can help you find it.

We expect our members to participate and become a part of the community. Help yourself by helping others.

You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free and simple.

So.. after many years of trading pure supply demand with abbreviate and modified sam seiden methods and trading price action in a selftaught way.. and finally completely switching to trading futures i have become more and more enthralled with volume and the actual composition of bars.
But it seems i have run into a sort of conundrum, somebody i met recently on another forum while discussing footprints has mentioned the following:

Quoting

"Every trade has two sides: a market order and a limit order. Orders executed at the bid consist of a limit order to buy at that price and a market order to sell that goes to the next available bid. Every trade executed on the offer consists of a limit order to sell at that price and a market order to buy at the next offer."

But when i am displaying the data via footprints like here for example:

Please register on futures.io to view futures trading content such as post attachment(s), image(s), and screenshot(s).

The problem becomes obvious. Now apart from the fact that you need to represent the numbers bars in a way that is appropriate to your style of trading, in my case extreme precision scalping, the other problem is the fact that there is difficulty in understanding what exactly is going on. Lets take The bar at the low signified with the red arrow and the number 1. We had a print of 64x0 (64 bids and 0 asks), all in all thats fine. If you look at videos from marketdelta or read documentation anywhere on the web (frankly there is not a lot) then you know that the information displayed is the amount of volume for that pricelevel that was executed at the bid or the ask.
Back to the problem, there (to me at least) is no apparent way to differentiate between the fact if that 64 executed at the bid (or partial amounts of it) were passive buyers (buying at bid) or aggressive sellers (market sell at bid).
Why is this important to me or at least from my point of view:

I want to differentiate between people legitimately entering sell positions or actively selling and people who are being forced out of their positions by having their stops run over. Like you can see here:

Please register on futures.io to view futures trading content such as post attachment(s), image(s), and screenshot(s).

Where the massive amount of prints on the bid below the black line or after price moved through the black line was signaling that buyers who were sitting a bit higher were forced to market close@bidprice causing those large prints.
Now this is all fine and after several hours of my head hurting like somebody stuck it into a woodchipper i am beginning to deconstruct charts... looking at chart 1 for example how would (in the upper zone here denoted by the green box) differentiate between lets say Aggressive buyers buying at market actively, and people who are exiting their positions i.e closing their longs.

In other words how would i approach differentiating retail buyers who are getting in too late and institutional volume who are exiting their positions wisely and essentially will force the market to to respect the resistance/supply zone and price to move lower again. Is there any way to filter them out?

Also other thoughts, ideas etc are always welcome since the amount of information is partially limited on the net.

So.. after many years of trading pure supply demand with abbreviate and modified sam seiden methods and trading price action in a selftaught way.. and finally completely switching to trading futures i have become more and more enthralled with volume and the actual composition of bars.
But it seems i have run into a sort of conundrum, somebody i met recently on another forum while discussing footprints has mentioned the following:

But when i am displaying the data via footprints like here for example:

Please register on futures.io to view futures trading content such as post attachment(s), image(s), and screenshot(s).

The problem becomes obvious. Now apart from the fact that you need to represent the numbers bars in a way that is appropriate to your style of trading, in my case extreme precision scalping, the other problem is the fact that there is difficulty in understanding what exactly is going on. Lets take The bar at the low signified with the red arrow and the number 1. We had a print of 64x0 (64 bids and 0 asks), all in all thats fine. If you look at videos from marketdelta or read documentation anywhere on the web (frankly there is not a lot) then you know that the information displayed is the amount of volume for that pricelevel that was executed at the bid or the ask.
Back to the problem, there (to me at least) is no apparent way to differentiate between the fact if that 64 executed at the bid (or partial amounts of it) were passive buyers (buying at bid) or aggressive sellers (market sell at bid).
Why is this important to me or at least from my point of view:

If Sellers where hitting the BID then its the later part ie. Market Sell Orders going off
at the best available price for the time beeing... (agrressive sellers)

those 64 contracts sitting at BID are just that 64 contratcs sitting there waiting to get filled or to be pulled
if they get filled teh traders/tarder wanted it to happen of wahtever reason . and teh Why is not that important
rather , what .. as what happens afetr those contracts get printed on bid.. what happens after that ?
do we see new Bids coming in (refreshing?) ? do we see a follow thru of sellers .. more contracts hitting the bid ?

I want to differentiate between people legitimately entering sell positions or actively selling and people who are being forced out of their positions by having their stops run over. Like you can see here:

Please register on futures.io to view futures trading content such as post attachment(s), image(s), and screenshot(s).

Where the massive amount of prints on the bid below the black line or after price moved through the black line was signaling that buyers who were sitting a bit higher were forced to market close@bidprice causing those large prints.
Now this is all fine and after several hours of my head hurting like somebody stuck it into a woodchipper i am beginning to deconstruct charts... looking at chart 1 for example how would (in the upper zone here denoted by the green box) differentiate between lets say Aggressive buyers buying at market actively, and people who are exiting their positions i.e closing their longs.

Well Aggressive Buyers Lift the Offers by executing market orders @ Best Offer , while Profit taking ( if its set as TP /limit) are 'The Offers' (amongst others) who get Lifted

In other words how would i approach differentiating retail buyers who are getting in too late and institutional volume who are exiting their positions wisely and essentially will force the market to to respect the resistance/supply zone and price to move lower again. Is there any way to filter them out?

well as Institutionals position themselfes ahead of the herd most of the time
.. ie mostly acting with limit and stop orders, they are morelikley passive.. and let the herd run a stampede .. into
their bags.. or traps ..

there are actually many games played on th DOM ... but u cant see them on the footprint charts
as orders get pulled .. and one side will look strong while the other looks weak.. just to lure in
retailers or uninformed traders ...

just google Paul Rotter for example , the flipper
or Maverick74 on tape reading ,
or elite trader reading the specialist,
or no bs day trading
or futurestrader71

as i think if u are a precisicion scalper u should need the DOM (depth of market)
to get the best infomations out of it... ie who is in controll

note that to spot Institutional action .. u need to follow size .. as they trade size
and i mean watch where those sized prints go off and how teh market reacts to it..

Also other thoughts, ideas etc are always welcome since the amount of information is partially limited on the net.

Its not important to know why or who is hitting the bid .. but rather how the market reacts to certain action
like lets say the market trades torwards resistance and u see above resistance Sizes of 2k contracts
sitting there at the OFFER ,, ie the market looks weak at resistance as well there is obviously supply at resistance..

so most retailers and unifnormed traders actually lean against those size thinking the market will react here
so they hit the BID .... guess what ? the guys who placed teh 2K orders above res. are the ones who are sitting
at BID and they get hit .. ie they buy ... as soon as they got bought all they intended .. they pull the OFFERS above
resistance.. and place them on the bid ,,, making the Buyside now look strong... they may buy anything left at
OFFER to push thru resistance.. forcing the sellers out and puke .. and new buing comes in from some breakout traders buying the way up (they follow the breakout)... as fresh and scared money enters the market at the same time forcing price to move up .. and on the way up the guys playing the game.. placed there OFFERS along the way of the scared and fresh money.. generating some nice profits.....

Due to time constraints, please do not PM me if your question can be resolved or answered on the forum.

Need help?1) Stop changing things. No new indicators, charts, or methods. Be consistent with what is in front of you first.2) Start a journaland post to it daily with the trades you made to show your strengths and weaknesses.3) Set goals for yourself to reach daily. Make them about how you trade, not how much money you make.4) Accept responsibility for your actions. Stop looking elsewhere to explain away poor performance.5) Where to start as a trader? Watch this webinar and read this thread for hundreds of questions and answers.6) Help using the forum? Watch this video to learn general tips on using the site.

So.. after many years of trading pure supply demand with abbreviate and modified sam seiden methods and trading price action in a selftaught way.. and finally completely switching to trading futures i have become more and more enthralled with volume and the actual composition of bars.
But it seems i have run into a sort of conundrum, somebody i met recently on another forum while discussing footprints has mentioned the following:

But when i am displaying the data via footprints like here for example:

The problem becomes obvious. Now apart from the fact that you need to represent the numbers bars in a way that is appropriate to your style of trading, in my case extreme precision scalping, the other problem is the fact that there is difficulty in understanding what exactly is going on. Lets take The bar at the low signified with the red arrow and the number 1. We had a print of 64x0 (64 bids and 0 asks), all in all thats fine. If you look at videos from marketdelta or read documentation anywhere on the web (frankly there is not a lot) then you know that the information displayed is the amount of volume for that pricelevel that was executed at the bid or the ask.
Back to the problem, there (to me at least) is no apparent way to differentiate between the fact if that 64 executed at the bid (or partial amounts of it) were passive buyers (buying at bid) or aggressive sellers (market sell at bid).
Why is this important to me or at least from my point of view:

If Sellers where hitting the BID then its the later part ie. Market Sell Orders going off
at the best available price for the time beeing... (agrressive sellers)

those 64 contracts sitting at BID are just that 64 contratcs sitting there waiting to get filled or to be pulled
if they get filled teh traders/tarder wanted it to happen of wahtever reason . and teh Why is not that important
rather , what .. as what happens afetr those contracts get printed on bid.. what happens after that ?
do we see new Bids coming in (refreshing?) ? do we see a follow thru of sellers .. more contracts hitting the bid ?

I want to differentiate between people legitimately entering sell positions or actively selling and people who are being forced out of their positions by having their stops run over. Like you can see here:

Where the massive amount of prints on the bid below the black line or after price moved through the black line was signaling that buyers who were sitting a bit higher were forced to market close@bidprice causing those large prints.
Now this is all fine and after several hours of my head hurting like somebody stuck it into a woodchipper i am beginning to deconstruct charts... looking at chart 1 for example how would (in the upper zone here denoted by the green box) differentiate between lets say Aggressive buyers buying at market actively, and people who are exiting their positions i.e closing their longs.

Well Aggressive Buyers Lift the Offers by executing market orders @ Best Offer , while Profit taking ( if its set as TP /limit) are 'The Offers' (amongst others) who get Lifted

In other words how would i approach differentiating retail buyers who are getting in too late and institutional volume who are exiting their positions wisely and essentially will force the market to to respect the resistance/supply zone and price to move lower again. Is there any way to filter them out?

well as Institutionals position themselfes ahead of the herd most of the time
.. ie mostly acting with limit and stop orders, they are morelikley passive.. and let the herd run a stampede .. into
their bags.. or traps ..

there are actually many games played on th DOM ... but u cant see them on the footprint charts
as orders get pulled .. and one side will look strong while the other looks weak.. just to lure in
retailers or uninformed traders ...

just google Paul Rotter for example , the flipper
or Maverick74 on tape reading ,
or elite trader reading the specialist,
or no bs day trading
or futurestrader71

as i think if u are a precisicion scalper u should need the DOM (depth of market)
to get the best infomations out of it... ie who is in controll

note that to spot Institutional action .. u need to follow size .. as they trade size
and i mean watch where those sized prints go off and how teh market reacts to it..

Also other thoughts, ideas etc are always welcome since the amount of information is partially limited on the net.

Its not important to know why or who is hitting the bid .. but rather how the market reacts to certain action
like lets say the market trades torwards resistance and u see above resistance Sizes of 2k contracts
sitting there at the OFFER ,, ie the market looks weak at resistance as well there is obviously supply at resistance..

so most retailers and unifnormed traders actually lean against those size thinking the market will react here
so they hit the BID .... guess what ? the guys who placed teh 2K orders above res. are the ones who are sitting
at BID and they get hit .. ie they buy ... as soon as they got bought all they intended .. they pull the OFFERS above
resistance.. and place them on the bid ,,, making the Buyside now look strong... they may buy anything left at
OFFER to push thru resistance.. forcing the sellers out and puke .. and new buing comes in from some breakout traders buying the way up (they follow the breakout)... as fresh and scared money enters the market at the same time forcing price to move up .. and on the way up the guys playing the game.. placed there OFFERS along the way of the scared and fresh money.. generating some nice profits.....